Windows Media Question: The State Changed . . .

My hobby is playing guitar and trying to learn new tunes. Recently I had the idea to take an excerpt from a music video and play it in Windows Media Player, looping it so that I could hear the same phrase over and over again and try to play along with it.

When I tried this the player would only play it three or four times before stopping and giving me the following message.

The state changed while waiting to process the sample.

Is there any way that I can get Windows Media Player to play the loop over and over again ad infinitum. Usually it does this with a regular video without a hitch, but not with the small excerpt.

All help appreciated.

[edit on 23-7-2009 by ipsedixit]

I assume you are running wmp version 11???

If so, try downgrading to version 10, sometimes updates to the media player do strange things.

You could try downloading Windows Media File Editor and saving your song in small sections, thus allowing you to play them back while allowing you loop it over and over using Media Player.

Another option is looking for some freeware out there that will allow you to highlight parts of the songs waveform and loop the play back.
I think WavePad can do this.


BTW, I used to do what you are trying to do years ago.
Of course back in the day I used a cassette tape player that was able to review/rewind back without clanking to the stop position.
Just squeal back a few seconds of the song allowing me to learn it in bits and pieces to get the guitar lick note per note.

It really builds your ear muscially too.

To mrmonsoon and Alexandro:

Thanks for the responses. It seemed as if my initial post was going to go all the way to page 2 of the forum without a response, so I hadn't checked it in a while before returning to find your responses. Thanks and apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

Actually, I am running WMP 9. I will definitely look into that aspect of things.

Also thanks for the tip about using supplementary programs to try to isolate song segments. I hadn't thought of that. I've got a couple of such programs on my computer already. Looks like I might not be roadblocked after all.

Edit:

I am now using a freeware app called Expstudio Audio Editor to play small excerpts as loops and it works beautifully. Thanks again.

[edit on 3-8-2009 by ipsedixit]